Zotero 2.0 Is Here!

Zotero LogoAfter an extensive development and testing period and the addition of even more features to make academic research easier, more collaborative, and ready for the future, Zotero 2.0 went public tonight. I’ll be blogging extensively about Zotero 2.0 in this space over the coming weeks and months as it continues to develop, but here’s a quick list of what you get with the major upgrade:

Syncing

  • Automatic synchronization of collections among multiple computers. For example, sync your PC at work with your Mac laptop and your Linux desktop at home.
  • Free automatic backup of your library data on Zotero’s servers.
  • Automatic synchronization of your attachment files to a WebDAV server (e.g. iDisk, Jungle Disk, or university-provided web storage).

People

  • Zotero users get a personal page with a short biography and the ability to list their discipline and interests, create an online CV (simple to export to other sites), and grant access to their libraries.
  • Easily find others in one’s discipline or researchers with similar interests.
  • Follow other scholars—and be followed in return.

Groups

  • Create and join public and private groups on any topic.
  • Access in real time new research materials from your groups on the web or in the Zotero interface.
  • Easily move materials from a group stream into your personal library.

Even More Functionality That Makes Your Research Easier

  • Automatic detection of PDF metadata (i.e., author, title, etc.).
  • Automatic detection and support for proxy servers.
  • Trash can with restore item functionality so you don’t accidentally lose important materials.
  • Rich-text notes.
  • A new style manager allowing you to add and delete CSLs and legacy style formats.

As always, the real credit for Zotero goes to what Roy Rosenzweig aptly called “The People Who Did the Work”: Zotero co-director Sean Takats; lead developer Dan Stillman; developers Simon Kornblith, Jon Lesser, Faolan Cheslack-Postava, Fred Gibbs, Matt Burton; community lead Trevor Owens; integration advisor Raymond Yee; assistant Andrew Howard; and the scores of people beyond the Center for History and New Media who made contributions large and small to this open source project.

Zotero 2.0 was created with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Comments

Nice!

So, with stored citations on a central server — do you have any plans to investigate data-mining “people who stored this also stored that” type services?

Dan Cohen says:

@Jonathan Yes–see the Zotero home page, where the grayed-out “recommendations” is to come.

[…] needed one. Now it looks like Zotero is going to fill the gap. Zotero 2.0 is now in beta, and Dan Cohen has given a rundown of the new features. Users will get a personal page on the Zotero site allowing […]

Michael Harris says:

So, let’s say I’m collaborating on a paper with some colleagues.

A really nice set of features would be to use Zotero to actually manage the document revision process. Not all of this needs to be available at day one, but here is what I see …

The current copy of any paper/manuscript is uploaded to the Zotero group. Any team member can download it, but its marked “Checked out to John Doe”. It also reveals a promise date that John has promised to complete his changes. If John misses that date, a reminder email is sent to John. Once John checks it back in, he can either send it a group notice or he might send a Zotero email to Sallie informing her that it is her turn to take and edit the process.

Instead of taking turns on the document, some collaborators publish change documents that a central team member will then merge. For this function to work there would need to be a way to upload specific addendum/notes that can be attached to a paper version. This means that “Team Processes V2.0.doc” might have three attachments representing changes by different team members. Joe Smith would download the paper, merge in the attachments (manually) and upload a V3.0 paper.

The system also allows a target date for submission. I’m not sure it needs a full blown project management system. After all, collaborations are generally pretty small projects. If there was just a notes field, any steps could be noted there (Michael to address reviewer comments by June 1 then to hand off to Jane to add new methodology explanation by June 15).

It would be nice to have a slot for uploading/pasting a call for papers or submission guidelines, but I suspect that can just be done as another citation with an attached document. It would also be nice to have integrated email so that it was easy to send out group emails with any updates.

ps. I understand that I can use Zotero to synch up my citations. I assume this also extends to any documents attached to those citations?

[…] Dan Cohen) Posted by balexander on Sunday, May 24, 2009, at 9:35 am. Filed under Tools. Tagged extension, […]

Walter Pickett says:

Dan, 2.0 sounds fantastic. Is it possible to secure your files to your own designated group before you are ready to share them?

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